Whats the deal MSC

Let me start by saying that everyone I have dealt with at MSC USA office has been fairly pleasant.

Now, their Website and computer system is a hot pile of turd OR the CS reps just don't know how to use it.

I originally booked Seaside in October, got status matched in November and had the 5% discount applied.

Que up December, I decide for a Holiday present I will upgrade our Bella Balcony room to a Aurea Whirlpool Suite, call them up they do it and send me the new confirmation, but they clicked me into a deck 9 room. Call back to have it changed, it wont let them change it to the last room available in that category on Deck 14 so they send it to inventory to fix (after 90 min on the phone trying to do it) 1.5 days later finally get confirmation for the right room, look it over and the price seems off, but lower so I just ignore because their booking sheet is poorly laid out.

Que Tuesday this week. They have a sale that is 220 less for the room minus no more OBC (150$) and no internet(dont use anyway) and instead has photo package(planned on purchasing) Call up, the rep says she doesnt see the difference and to call my vacation planner that helped me book, I dig her number up and she cant figure it out -- finally sees it and cant get it to change on my original booking and has to create a new one -- fine its just a booking number -- now wont let her cancel my old one so she can move my room number over and move my deposit money over -- sends to supervisor to cancel old booking --- gets canceled now cant assign that room to me --- sends to inventory --- 2 days gone by now I have one booking confirmation that has me in the wrong room, no money applied to booking, doesn't show up in my login profile, cant see it in manage booking outside of my account.

On a positive its not until October 2018.

Before you flame me about my room I should mention that Aurea Balconies on upper decks are only Deck 15 and 14 which is where my family is going to book, we are traveling with an under 2 year old an they help us with her. The room we had was the only one left on 14 or 15, cant imagine going up and down decks to trade off child in early morning or late night -- or really anytime what a pain.

OK end rant Anyone else having these problems because I need a vacation from just trying to book my vacation

I may need to clarify my vacation planner was a MSC USA office sales rep. not a travel agent

There isn't a day goes by where there isn't a problem with MSC website of some sort and anything associated with it. I wish MSC would read these boards and see just how many problems there are with it and how many frustrated customers there are.

Definitely sounds frustrating, researchfreak90! Your woes remind me why I always use a TA (who’s also a friend), I just let him deal with all of the headaches. Good luck [emoji256] and hope they sort it all out for you.

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I just talked to an MSC CS who assured me the website does not work and no idea when it will. whups lol

Your woes remind me why I always use a TA (who’s also a friend), I just let him deal with all of the headaches.

As a TA, I go through this almost on a daily basis with them. The problem is their inventory department was taken away from the US and anything inventory related now has to go through Naples, Italy (their Operational headquarters). Of course with the time difference, anything after about 1pm Eastern doesn't even get addressed till the next day.

To me, it makes no sense to go through that hassle of emailing across the Atlantic for something as simple as a cabin change. But that's what they do in certain cases.

Bret

It never ends.

My TA had the exact same problem as you did. I was switching to one sailing early though, so not the same ship or price matching or such though.

What MSC was able to do for us though was hold the room I wanted, which was 15007 or 15008 on Magnifica which only 15008 was available on that sailing until they could get it straight.

It did take them about 48 hours though, but in the end it all worked out. Happily I am a planner and decided on this MSC cruise about a year before it was even released so I did a lot of reading on here. After that, I decided MSC w/o booking with a TA would have been much more of a headache than it was worth!

Happily I don't need my TA for much, but I love the fact I can email him with things, and when he gets a chance he will deal with MSC for me since a simple thing seems to take hours.

Everybody is different, I guess. I’m the type to do a lot of research, decide what I want, then book. I don’t keep changing my mind about which deck, type of cabin, experience level, etc. That (in my opinion) just invites confusion, frustration and stress, and that is the OPPOSITE of what I want when I’m planning a vacation. But as I say, everybody is different.

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There isn't a day goes by where there isn't a problem with MSC website of some sort and anything associated with it. I wish MSC would read these boards and see just how many problems there are with it and how many frustrated customers there are.

Since MSC set up the website this was never different. Over the years you will learn to cope with it, nobody books MSC because their online presence :cool:

Update:

I can now see my new reservation on my account. It is still the wrong cabin and I don't have a new invoice yet showing my transfer of funds. The rep I have been working with has been responding to emails withing 4 or 5 hours at most. I will give them through Monday before I raise any stink about it, I have been a very understanding person about it to this point as I believe you can catch more with Honey than Vinegar.

I can understand about researching then choosing, and thats usually what we do unless there is a big price drop that invites an upgrade, and we have previously cruised with RCL and this was never a problem. I always research to no end then book and then research more. The difference with this cruise was the new cruise ship that did not have any live/finished pictures or actual information until recently. Also, being new to this line caused some price comparisons post booking to see actual cost of things like beverage packages, photo packages, and spa stuff that made the aurea package seem more worth it. We also booked this cruise 2 weeks before we left for another cruise, that cruise was our first with our young daughter of 11 month at the time. After this cruise we learned a lot about cruising with a young child that also made having our own whirlpool on our balcony appealing, hence the upgrade. So needless to say a lot of things played into making the upgrade that we couldn't know about at original booking, besides a company that wants to make money should make it easier for you to spend more money with them and not more difficult -- upgrades should be a streamlined process.

I say this with complete understanding for your frustration, but as someone who has been to Italy 23 times and who has friends in Italy, it’s almost a given that any company based there is going to mess up. In case that offends anyone, please allow any of my friends in Rome (native Italians, mind you) to convince you. I think you’re taking the right attitude of using honey over vinegar, by the way. I’ve had a lot of things go wrong on vacations over the years and I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. Best of luck and kudos to you for your patience.

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.....a company that wants to make money should make it easier for you to spend more money with them and not more difficult.....

Preaching to the choir on that one. ;p I tell them that all the time.

Bret

Well, the frustration continues, this morning I was able to view my reservation online and now its vanished again. still no progress or any word on the other fronts.

Thanks for talking about your msc experience. How was the allure btw?

I say this with complete understanding for your frustration, but as someone who has been to Italy 23 times and who has friends in Italy, it’s almost a given that any company based there is going to mess up. In case that offends anyone, please allow any of my friends in Rome (native Italians, mind you) to convince you.

I agree with you, "best" experience is trying to buy a flight from Alitalia.com. And if you for some strange reason managed to do, then comes the rescheduling.

But there is one big exception, the Trenitalia Webpage - which also totally sucked earlier - now is one of the best webpages of a railway company worldwide. User-friendly, convinient, technically state of the art. I asked my italian friends in Milan how this could happen, they have no idea but "must have to do something with the chinese" :')

So relax, researchfreak90, this is already part of your holiday in Italy without setting a foot to Italy.

Thanks for talking about your msc experience. How was the allure btw?

Allure was fantastic! Any specific Questions Id be happy to answer!

What is included in your photo package? We are sailing on the same 10/13/18 cruise and have the OBC and internet package. My TA mentioned this new photo package offer at a lower rate, but I'm unsure which is the better deal. We are YC, so I don't know what the price diff is at this point. My TA is on a cruise right now :)

Allure was fantastic! Any specific Questions Id be happy to answer!

Funny, we were just on Allure two weeks ago, and we only found it to be average. Too crowded, so-so food, even in specialty restaurants. And as a suite guest who paid more than YC prices, I would say YC on MSC beats RCL suites hands down. Unless you want a loft apartment for a cabin!

What is included in your photo package? We are sailing on the same 10/13/18 cruise and have the OBC and internet package. My TA mentioned this new photo package offer at a lower rate, but I'm unsure which is the better deal. We are YC, so I don't know what the price diff is at this point. My TA is on a cruise right now :)

My understanding from the description is it is all photos from the cruise on a "card" to do with what you want. Im assuming a "card" is a usb flash drive or some other type of digital memory device. For us, the price difference was 220. The old package had 150 OBC and the internet. Since we dont use the internet this was 70 more money, plus we were gonna buy the exact photo package it came with which runs 99$ from what I can tell. So in our mind this was 170$ cheaper in the end

Funny, we were just on Allure two weeks ago, and we only found it to be average. Too crowded, so-so food, even in specialty restaurants. And as a suite guest who paid more than YC prices, I would say YC on MSC beats RCL suites hands down. Unless you want a loft apartment for a cabin!

We were on back in October. Crowds were only bad at elevators, Food in the main dining room we never felt the need to go to specialty dining and probally the best main dining experience we ever had on RCL (now 5 trips), We had a boardwalk balcony and aside from a hicup with their EAT PLAY DINE promo it was great. Usually we book balcony or below but this upcoming trip and our previous trip with our little one (not to mention MSC Aurea whirlpool Suite is cheaper than just a plain junior suite on a RCL comparable cruise) made us try a suite and all inclusive deal for the firs time ever on a cruise, not sure what we will do with ourselves.

We were on back in October. Crowds were only bad at elevators, Food in the main dining room we never felt the need to go to specialty dining and probally the best main dining experience we ever had on RCL (now 5 trips), We had a boardwalk balcony and aside from a hicup with their EAT PLAY DINE promo it was great. Usually we book balcony or below but this upcoming trip and our previous trip with our little one (not to mention MSC Aurea whirlpool Suite is cheaper than just a plain junior suite on a RCL comparable cruise) made us try a suite and all inclusive deal for the firs time ever on a cruise, not sure what we will do with ourselves.

So glad you had fun! Makes we wonder if we made as mistake in not trying MDR. We only did specialty and Coastal Kitchen. Also, travelling with a little one is a whole different experience. I remember those days! If you enjoy the Seaside this time, I would say that you would love the YC experience especially if it's just the two of you.

So glad you had fun! Makes we wonder if we made as mistake in not trying MDR. We only did specialty and Coastal Kitchen. Also, travelling with a little one is a whole different experience. I remember those days! If you enjoy the Seaside this time, I would say that you would love the YC experience especially if it's just the two of you.

This will be our 2nd cruise with the little one. On our last cruise on Allure we really missed going to the hot tubs since she cant go in them. So the Whirlpool suite allows for this option since the security of the room allows for us to enjoy the whirlpool while she play son the balcony and the room. The Yacht club looks really cool but I think if we were to travel just the two of us we couldn't justify the cost as easily. In general we are easily seduced by nice things so the level that the yacht club provides would probably just overwhelm us anyway, We live in a small town of 3000 in southwestern Colorado and our bigger city is only about 60,000 so a regular cruise experience is already luxury for us --- but if someone want to donate us the experience I certainly wouldn't turn it away

Update

Finally called my MSC agent today

The room they were supposed to have moved back to they gave to someone else -- go figure -- but she is confident something in our category will open on that deck since its so early. -- I can live with this for now -- really not then end of the world

They have my booking showing the deposit I paid - but no photo package -- she has a request with her Supervisor to add this on manually -- I have an email trail for this so I can backtrack after this promo ends today

Booking has disappeared off the site yesterday again -- Looks like this is just a reality I will have to learn to deal with -- whatever not a big deal I suppose as long as the ship doesn't work some days and doesn't others hahaha:'):'):')

All in all my price reflection is correct and we are in the Whirlpool Suite on deck 12 aft and we are going ona cruise in the fall -- I guess ill just have to do more research on Seaside as details start coming out since she arrives to Miami today or tomorrow. And ofcourse chit chat with all you wonderful people :evilsmile::evilsmile::evilsmile: